Got a little bit behind on consolidating these. Happy about my snatch PR above though, strength training is paying off.

Wednesday 111207

I’ve used a ton of different methods to track my progress.  I had a Google Doc, then a workout log on the Crossfit Discussion Board, then a blog, then a ton more GDocs doing all kinds of crazy shit.  Now what I do is use Evernote and one Gdoc.  The Evernote App is right on my phone, so I just type it in and it syncs online automatically.  I pull up the Gdoc on Safari so I know what I’m supposed to lift for my Wendler progression.

If for some reason I don’t follow my template, I can just search Evernote anytime I need to check what weight I used last workout.  For instance, I can just search “Back Squat 3-3” and the last Back Squat 3-3-3-3-3 WOD will come up and I can see what I lifted and put more weight on the bar, which I absolutely need to do.  If I don’t know what I lifted last time, chances are I will puss out pretty fiercely.

Or if it’s a benchmark WOD, then I can just search “Cindy” or “CFT” and all my old scores will come up.

What do you use? -Brian PCF

Monday 111213

Reprinted from comments on 111129: There’s a great story from “From the Horses Mouth: Essays for the Small Unit Leader” about a Civil War General who had three Colonels under him with wildly varied personalities.

Colonel #1 needed to be told exactly what to do with explicit detail – but if the General did it, Colonel #1 would deliver exactly what the General laid out.

Colonel #2 HATED to be told what to do or how to do it – so the General would just say “I need this hill taken by this time”, and that’s all the Colonel would stand for. So the General did it that way and got what he wanted.

Now Colonel #3 was even trickier. Whatever you told him to do, he’d want to do the exact opposite. So every time the General wanted something done, he’d have to say something like “Well Colonel #3, there’s simply no way that we could attack that Confederate flank tomorrow morning and take that position – it simply can’t be done.”

On cue, Colonel #3 would say “General, my Regiment will be standing atop that hill by dawn!”

Where I see this applying most often is with the idea of goal setting. Some people LOVE goals. They love setting them and achieving them, and that’s terrific. If this gets you in the gym, working hard, eating clean, then keep doing it.

I’ve helped plenty of athletes set goals and laid out plans to achieve them. It works for a lot of people.

But for me, I can’t stand setting goals. This just doesn’t work for me. This could be nurture more than nature, as I grew up playing baseball and it’s really really hard to set goals in baseball. It’s such a mental game that if you get crazy on the details and say “I want to hit .300 this year” – the second you dip below .300 you spend all your time trying to figure out why instead of just focusing on doing your best and taking it one at bat at a time.

So for my Crossfit training, I just take things one day at a time, show up as often as I can, and work hard. Goals can make some people neurotic, they do that to me. I just want to come in, have fun, and try to get a little better.

This may not be the right way, but like the analogy above, I don’t know if there is one right way.

What do you think? Do you do better setting goals or just showing up? -Brian PCF

Monday 111220

In engineering, the term Factor of Safety is a term describing the structural capacity of a system beyond the expected loads or actual loads. Essentially, how much stronger the system is than it usually needs to be for an intended load.

Since we can’t design or build our system (us) any stronger than it is on the day of the WOD, we have to scale the load/reps to the appropriate Factor of Safety.

For our newer athletes, during the more complex lifts (Snatch, Clean, Jerk) and Metabolic Conditioning WODs, you should have a pretty high factor of safety. Meaning, you should do less weight than you think/know you can do.

During the “simpler” lifts (squat, deadlift, press, bench press) in our strength programming (3-3-3…, 5-5-5…, etc) we want you to push as close to your max as you can safely get, form being paramount. Even with more weight, you retain a high factor of safety because you aren’t as likely to injure yourself as long as your form remains correct.

For more experienced athletes, the factor of safety should be lower on simpler lifts, complex lifts and METCONs, unless you’re periodizing. Meaning you should be challenging yourself, but there should still be a delta between you absolute max and what you’re working with.

The goal of this is to build our system stronger than before over the long haul. If we don’t address Factor of Safety (e.g., Scaling) properly in Crossfit or Engineering, then we have a much higher risk of catastrophic failure. -Brian PCF

Wednesday 111222

I think we instinctively understand the idea that hard work in the gym produces great results. I am consistently wowed by athletes like Jen Navarro and Andrew Zwerner when I see them work out. They keep working hard, and they keep getting better.

I also think there’s something instinctive in the human psyche that always wants to find an easier way to get better. That’s true of top athletes and beginners as well.

That latter desire can be a great asset for someone that needs to tighten up nutrition, sleep more, work on mobility, or get more experienced in competition. But it can also be a terrible burden for someone who thinks they can avoid hard work.

Whether you are a top athlete or a new athlete, your results will primarily be from showing up and working hard. -Brian PCF

Tuesday 111227

You can think of nutrition a lot like fixing your car. You can go totally DIY and really get into it by reading up, buying the right tools, and doing a lot of trial and error. You’ll mess up a good amount and it’ll take a larger time commitment, but you’ll also learn a lot in the process.

You can get instruction on how to fix your car (like the Paleo Challenge). We’ll equip you with all the basics of nutrition and be there to provide feedback on how the fixes you’ve implemented have worked and what you need to continue to tweak. Also, learning with a group is a huge benefit.

You can also just get somebody to fix your car for you, and that’s where 1:1 Nutritional Counseling comes in. This option focuses on fixing the exact issues you have with an experienced and knowledgeable mechanic. -Brian PCF

Wednesday 111228

I was listening to a recent Robb Wolf podcast where he was answering a question about primal/paleo lifestyle and relating it to his stint on the reality show “I, Caveman”. The question was a from a listener who wanted to do a kind of caveman trip into the woods, just take the bare necessities and then hunt and gather food, water, shelter, etc.

Robb’s big point was that a) you really need to respect what nature can do to you, and b) every little bit of technological innovation that you will allow yourself will make the process easier.

These points actually got me thinking about training. When we tell athletes to scale, what we’re really saying is: respect nature. Meaning, you’re only able to do so much – and if you do more than that, Nature in the form of what Mark Rippetoe calls “Mean Old Mr. Gravity” is going to fuck you up.

Survival experts can go into the wilderness with a pocket knife and some matches and survive because they know what to expect, they know their limitations and they know how to get help if they need it.

If you are new to Crossfit, don’t convince yourself you’re invincible. Respect nature, learn what you can and can’t do, ask for help and always have a good factor of safety in whatever you try. -Brian PCF

Thursday 111229

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” -Chuck Close [H/T Bryan G.]

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.” -Ira Glass

Your “taste” is driving you to look/feel/perform bette. If your fitness is not where you want it to be, you will improve your product (you) by coming in day-in and day-out and practicing being better. It’s a long process and it’s not easy.

If somebody is trying to sell you easy fitness, challenge them to a burpee contest. If (when) you win, tell them about our free class on Sundays. -Brian PCF

Monday 120109
Crossfit is much like investing. You need to contribute capital, meaning you need to put in time. But you also need to be wise in your investments.

If you’re a new athlete, you need to invest with minimal risk: fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. No intensity without consistency.

For the intermediate athlete, you should accept some risk and step out of your comfort zone occasionally, but your portfolio should still be mostly rock solid long term investments.

For the high level athlete, you should push out of your comfort zone regularly. You’ll have the hindsight of years of investing that will kick in if you’re really doing something stupid, but if you’re not a little scared of your workouts, you’re probably not pushing the limit far enough.

And since we’re on the subject, buy gold. -Brian PCF

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There is no difference between a WODaholic and a Non-WODaholic. They are both still addicted, it’s just that one actually shows up.

Today we explore ways to set yourself back on track and #justshowup with a new 12 Step Program.

Why settle for your basic shitty Paleo Challenge run by some hack. Coming soon from Brian PCF: MindFuck Challenge. You’re benchmarks are:

• How scared are you about not showing up? Not enough! We will send former Russian Spetsnaz to your house, kidnap you, claim to be Chechen’s, drive you around in circles for miles (you live 7 minutes from the gym, it’s not dramatic if they take you straight there), and tape your hands to a fucking barbell.
• We will break into your home, and force you to watch every episode of Mad Men and whenever anyone pours a drink or lights a cigarette we will pepper spray you in the fucking face. If you don’t have the DVD’s, don’t worry, we’ll get them from your roomate, who at least has Season 2.
• And in extreme situations: indefinite detention, enhanced cheese-deprivation techniques, and subliminal word association (bread=yucky poopy), in order to scare the living shit out of you.

The Brian PCF 12 Step Mindfuck Non-WODaholic Program (thanks AA):

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol not showing up — that our lives had become unmanageable really busy because my job sucks and TV and Clarendon are awesome.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves our newly rehired and somewhat passable, when sober, coach Brian PCF and the Crossfit Community could restore us to our sanity previous pant/dress size and modest feeling of fucking eliteness.

3. Made a decision to turn our will credit card number and our lives five hours per week over to the care of God said passably competent coach as we understood Him even though we don’t understand most of his strange blog posts.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves frantic search for old clothes because my “three months of Crossfit” clothes don’t fit anymore.

5. Admitted to God our coach, to ourselves, and to another human being a random stranger at Spider Kelly’s during happy hour the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We are entirely ready to have God our somewhat passable coach and the Crossfit Community remove all these defects of character make us walk around like we just had an appointment with the angriest proctologist on earth for at least the first two weeks back.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings for our old membership rate.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed non-paleo foods we ate at the office Christmas Party, and became willing to make amends to them all at least try Paleo-brownies versus the real thing.

9. Made direct amends deposit and a long term contract my preferred payment option to such people Crossfit gyms wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others jeopardize my paying for my share of yacht week at Lake Havasu, which is totally rad.

10. Continued to take personal inventory thrash myself mentally and when we were wrong done promptly admitted it started drinking mojito’s at home, alone.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation frequent posts with exclamation points on the comments section rather than showing up to improve our conscious contact with God my mostly passable coach and the Crossfit Community as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out that some stupid workout with [insert: Squats/Not Squats/Box Jumps/Pullups/Pushups/Running/Not Running/Rowing/Not Rowing/Double Unders/etc] wouldn’t come up on the day I swore I’d come back, but if it did I’d have the power to carry that out, or at least not get caught shaving reps off the last round.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening a simultaneous shitting/puking episode in the one bathroom at the gym as the next class is showing up and them totally hearing/smelling this as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics non-Crossfitting co-workers, friends, and family, and to practice these principles in all our affairs so they know what a fucking badass I am, or at least will be if I can stick with it this time.

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*If I was competing in the 18 and Under Female category (literally, here’s the weight they put up). I wouldn’t win, but I’d be pretty close – and that’s if I was competing in the 105 lbs division. Holy shit.

The Specific Generalized Template seems to be doing ok. Did Power Clean/Split Jerk 4x1x225 and Back Squat 3x5x300 yesterday.

1 Comment »

First off, big ups to our Cold War Teams, they did great this weekend.

Tuesday 111129

A quick note about consistency and goals: I had an athlete lay out a plan for me via email that included 5-6 days of training per week. There was a lot of stuff that was outside of the normal WOD that he saw as a weakness and that he wanted to work on. I didn’t think that his extra stuff was too bad an idea, and I noticed that when I saw him in the gym, that he wasn’t progressing too much on his weights during strength sessions or METCONs.

We had some back and forth on what we thought was the best approach, then randomly I looked at the number of times that he’s come to the gym in the last six months. He had averaged 1.8 visits per week.

Lesson is: Master the basics before you throw them out. The basics in this case means: show up. That will fix pretty much every issue that you are going to have. -Brian PCF

This one started a spirited discussion on the blog, check it out here.
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Wednesday 111130

I try to get every athlete who has just graduated Foundations to understand this analogy:

Foundations is like listening to Spanish on tape. It’s confusing at first, but not too hard to get the basics. After several hours of this, you think: “hey, I’m getting this!”

When you start attending Workout of the Day Classes, that’s like being dropped into a dive bar in Jaurez, Mexico, at midnight on a Saturday. Your first reaction is “Holy Shit, is this guy talking to me going to stab me or is he asking me what time it is?”

Like language, immersion is the key. Give WODs about six weeks and you’ll understand movements, terms, logistics, and how to get in and out without getting shot. -Brian PCF
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Proper nutrition is the single most important thing you can do for your health and fitness. Seriously, you can stop working out, quit the gym, eat super clean, and be generally healthy.

You’ll be much better off adding functional movements (aka movements the body is designed to do) with some degree of intensity, but if you just eat clean, you’re going to be doing great.

Don’t look at your nutrition and exercise as two sides of a scale. You don’t get to eat grilled cheese sandwiches in the morning, workout at night and get “balanced”. Eat clean, work hard in the gym. -Brian PCF

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Tuesday 111122

Are you ready for the Crossfit Games Open? The Open starts 23 February and runs for five weeks, ending March 25.

Again and again we see the folks that compete make huge gains in their fitness. It’s almost like cheating, because you’re going to get better faster than the folks that are putting the same amount of effort in the gym.

We have several options for competitions coming up, to get notified about upcoming events and compete as part of the PCF Team, email aaron@potomaccrossfit.com. -Brian PCF
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Wednesday 111123

“The single biggest thing you can do to improve your fitness is attack your weaknesses head on.” -Greg Glassman

If your weakness is you don’t write down your loads/times/rounds, then freaking do it. -Brian PCF
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Thursday 111124

We harp on range of motion because it is both the simplest detector of mobility issues as well as the simplest fix. Can’t get to the bottom of the squat? Squat more. Can’t extend your arms during pullups, do more pullups with more extension.

We can and do get sexy with it by employing the wall stretch, bench stretch, pray for pain, lawyer stretch, etc. But we want you to be able to move a load (bodyweight or external) through an “effective” range of motion. That’s how you’re going to demonstrate and improve power output, and it’s also how you’re going to get more mobile.

This gets trickier with folks that have practiced with less than full ROM for extended periods of time, but it’s also pretty easy to fix in 95% of athletes. If you have an issue, just talk to a coach or post to comments. -Brian PCF

1 Comment »

111114 (with some interesting discussion in the comments section)

I enjoyed the discussion by Dr. John Berardi on the Crossfit Journal the other week. I don’t agree with his “calories in/calories out” model of nutrition, nor do I buy the original theory of somatypes that he uses as his model to explain diet and training, but I thought in a broad-brush stroke he explained carb/fat intake and body type pretty well.

It certainly gave me a better prospective on looking at athletes who lean towards endurance or weightlifting more predominantly and how his model would, in a very linear way, describe the same kind of trends we see with athletes at PCF.

Everyone wants to be “good” at something. So it’s pretty natural for a relatively skinny person to want to run and a relative (ahem) “unskinny” person to want to weightlift. Now Crossfit came along and everyone could (more or less) be “good” at it because nobody else was doing it. Crossfit was a great way to short circuit the predominant model of either being able to run for a really long time or (look like you could) lift heavy weights.

But unfortunately for me, really good athletes are joining Crossfit faster and faster. So while I will still lord my 36th place finish in the 2009 Crossfit Regionals over Chris Karas (39th at the 2010 Regionals), I still want to be “good” at something, which is why I tend to mainly lift weights and 2-3x/week do some running or METCONs.

But I still do Crossfit, as I truly believe that a therapeutic dose of high-intensity functional movement makes you a better athlete no matter what your specialty.

What do you think? Should we play to our strengths, our weaknesses or just do straight up Crossfit? -Brian PCF
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111115

Things to worry about after you have a 1000 pound Crossfit Total, a Sub 3:00 minute Fran, and a sub 35:00 min Murph:

• Should I wear Skins?
• Should I take the Progenex Whey Protein or L-Glutamine?
• Should I visualize my WODs before I do them?
• Should I limit my exposure to potentially estrogenizing plastics?

Things to worry about before then:

• Did I eat Paleo today?
• Did I sleep 8+ hours?
• Did I work hard without being stupid at the WOD today?
• Did I try to eliminate the things in my life that cause me stress?

What did I miss? -Brian PCF

There was some good discussion about this in the comments section as well, and had one question from an athlete about his attitude being the thing that holds him back the most. My response is from a blog draft that I’ve had sitting around for a while and not sure what direction to go with it:

@Lou – this is probably the hardest question to answer as a coach, bar none. I tried to discuss it on my “Life Coach or Just a Coach” post here:

http://brian.potomaccrossfit.com/uncategorized/life-coach-or-just-a-coach/

I think this varies a ton between each athlete. I feel like there are two spectrums here, on one end you have the “Power of Positive Thinking” people:

Greg Amundson – “Your thoughts will become your words. Your words will become your actions. Your actions will become your habits. Your habits will become your character. Your character will define your destiny.”

Eckhart Tolle – “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

Tony Robbins – “Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.”

On the other end you have (and I don’t know how to classify these in one group, but they share characteristics):

David Chang, Owner, Momofuku Restaurant – “I run off hate and anger, it’s fueled me for the longest fucking time.”

Captain Kirk – “I want my pain, I need my pain.”

Achilles – “Sing, O Muse, of the Rage of Achilles.”

So like I said, I think it’s going to vary a lot with athletes.

Anybody want to chime in on what keeps them moving forward?

I think there’s a ton to unwrap here. I’m certainly not a “power of positive thinking” type of person, but I don’t think I’m totally self-destructive either. It appears to me that a lot of folks can be “good” at what they do (sport, business, military success, etc.) by very linear thinking, setting and achieving goals, etc.

I’d love to dig in to this some more, especially with respect to art imitating life: Holmes and Cocaine, Maturin and everything, Thompson and everything.
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111116

I was talking to one of the top male athletes at PCF last week about how to move from consistently top five to consistently number one on the leaderboard.

This athlete is doing all the right things, but has only been training for about two years.

I told him that at the high ends of performance, it’s not necessarily two-a-days or scaling up, it’s certainly not supplementation or Skins. It’s simply doing the little things better than your competition. Whether it’s sports or combat or CrossFit, if you are paying attention and executing the fundamentals consistently better than your opponent, you will win more games/battles/WODs than you lose. -Brian PCF

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1 Comment »

From PCF 111110:

I had a good question the other day from an athlete: When should I go into the pain cave?

My answer is always “never do something today that will keep you from training tomorrow.” I feel that keeps people from flipping on their “stupid switch” and risking injury to get an Rxd next to their name.

Also realize, this was a dude. Dudes tend to want to push weights a little heavier than they should, and many women tend to go to light. Make a note when you make your scaling selections and as always, ask a coach.
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Just want to expand on this by referencing one of my old posts on the difference between a “therapeutic dose of functional movement”, training for the elite athlete, and what I colloquially call “fucking elite” training.

If you are generally moving your bodyweight and external objects through basic functional movements with some level of intensity, you’re getting fitter.

If you are doing this safely, consistently, and improving the intensity (both in terms of load and time) by both training and proper rest, then you are closing in on “elite” levels of training.

If you eat like shit, don’t sleep, have a ton of stress in your life, booze it up on a Friday and come in for your once a week WOD on Saturday and slap the Rxd weights on the bar – you’re probably going to fuck yourself up pretty bad.

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For my other moderately useful stuff and Aaron and Erika’s actually useful stuff, check out our daily dose at Potomac and Patriot.

For competent advice only (rather than the mostly drunken ramblings above) you can also follow PCF coaches blogs here: Aaron, Erika, Liz, and Jon.

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Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some interesting insights that I think I can apply to my own job as a Coach. I didn’t like the author’s presentation at times, but with a muddy subject like transcendental psychology, I understand this is a very subjective view.

I appreciated the author’s desire to get across the point that nobody’s ever “sure” about diagnosis or treatment.

Some valuable points:

“One of the axioms of psychotherapy is that the important feelings one has for another always get communicated through one channel or another – if not verbally than non-verbally. For as long as I can remember, I have taught my students that if something big in a relationship is not being talked about (by either patient or therapist), then nothing else of importance will be discussed either.”

“We are all stuck with some anxiousness about death. It’s the price of admission to self-awareness.”

“The first step in all therapeutic change is responsibility assumption.”

“It’s the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals – my professional rosary. I say that often to students.”



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Encounter by Milan Kundera

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful followup to “The Curtain”. Rich in it’s examination of the novel, but also moves into painting, music, and poetry.



Mainly a defense of writing as art, especially with the examination of Malaparte and contrasting his work to Sartre’s quote: “Prose is in essence utilitarian…the writer is a speaker: he designates, demonstrates, orders, rejects, questions, entreats, insults, persuades, insinuates.”



Both in Malaparte’s excerpts and Kundera’s explanations, we find that writing can move far beyond utilitarian, in his last paragraph:



The war’s closing moments bring out a truth that is both fundamental and banal, both eternal and disregarded: compared to the living, the dead have an overwhelming numerical superiority, not just the dead of this war’s end but all the dead of all times, the dead of the past, the dead of the future; confident in their superiority, they mock us, they mock this little island of time we line in, this tiny time of the new Europe, they force us to grasp all its insignificance, all it’s transience…



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From the Potomac Crossfit blog last two weeks:

Wednesday 111026

I generally don’t like the “Harden the Fuck Up” attitude. When I see people do this (without a lot of thought involved beforehand) I see injury and general stupidity. However, I also think that you are least likely to adopt the most helpful attitude towards your own training. So if you naturally want to slam your head against the wall prior to your training so you can get in the zone, and then absolutely have to put 5 more pounds on the bar on squat days or sprint the last round of Helen until you throw up, then maybe you should chill out a little and stretch more often. But if you are a “finesse player” who tries to find creative ways to get fitter without working harder, you probably need to watch less Kelly Starrett videos and #HTFU. -Brian PCF

Thursday 111027

I don’t like to hound on the “Post to Comments” blurb that we put at the bottom of each day’s WOD. I think it’s critically important if we want to better our training, and I think it’s a great return on investment for the athlete and the box, but I don’t like the idea of beating people over the head to do it. I don’t think there’s a better way out there to get easy to track feedback on how you’re doing as an athlete and how we (and by we, I mean Erika and Aaron, I’m terrible at programming) are doing as a box. So consider this your passive aggressive reminder that it’s good for you and it’s good for us. -Brian PCF

Friday 111028

There’s nothing like having a dedicated training partner (or partners) to keep you on track. We swap around within the coaching staff all the time with this in mind. Right now I’ve got a $40 Paleo pool with Liz and Alison for the next month, and I run with Wilkins every Friday.

Self-organization is key, just find somebody who is shooting for the same general goals (eating clean, faster run times, better squat, etc), put some money on the line, write a contract, and do it.

Heavy trash talking and partner sabotage or actual human empathy are also completely up to you. -Brian PCF

Saturday 111029

Erika, Aaron and I have resolved to each write something on the blog every day. For many of our long time clients, hopefully these will reinforce things that you’ve learned in the past. For new clients, it will hopefully fill in some gaps in your knowledge of Crossfit and help you progress faster.

Todays Lesson: Long METCONs suck. That is all. -Brian PCF

Tuesday 111101

Inevitably, you will fuck yourself up to some degree while Crossfitting. Anecdotally I can say that 80% of this comes from activities outside of Crossfit: Soccer, Basketball, Rugby, Golf (yes, Golf).

There are a few things you need to do when you get injured:
1) Heal. This means rest, proper nutrition, and a “therapeutic dose of functional movement.”
2) Mobility. Ensure that you can move through the proper range of motion pain-free.
3) Get Strong as a Motherfucker. I have yet to see a persistent or random injury not get better by dedicated strength work. Consistent shoulder problems? What’s your 1RM Press? Consistent knee problems? What’s your 1RM Squat? -Brian PCF

Wednesday 111102

Let’s consider a thought experiment:

Athlete A joined Potomac Crossfit on 1 January 2011. Since then she has lost 15 pounds of body fat, she has gone from zero to three strict pullups, she couldn’t perform an air squat to full range of motion on her first day of Foundations, now she can squat 1.5xBW and deadlift 2xBW. She can do Helen and Fran Rxd, but the pullups take her a while.

The experiment: Is Athlete A happy with her progress?

Now this is where it gets tricky. Is Athlete A “half empty” or “half full” type of gal? Does she have a training partner that she can compete against? Is she even writing down her workouts so she knows how far she’s progressed? Is she comparing herself against the top girls in the gym or people at her ability level?

What I want you to consider is how much data versus attitude affects the quality and consistency of your training. -Brian PCF

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